Football Manager Series

Jowson said:
“The expectation level this year is so high that no game could ever reach it,” he admits. “People who aren't uber hardcore are coming into the studio and ****ing loving it. The uber hardcore are struggling to find where things are.” There is a harsh reality that the team has leant into: “We won't bring everyone with us.”

Miles.

Take from that what you will. I take that i'm not wanted, needed, valued anymore. 28 years has meant zilch it seems! But amazing memories.
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Source for those interested in the context: https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/football-manager-26-miles-jacobson

It's a pretty damning quote to be sure. The interviewer goes on to say that the hope is those "uber hardcore" will stick with it for long enough to "learn" the new interface and enjoy it, but A) Miles himself isn't quoted as saying that, and B) it frankly pisses me off how this argument denies the biggest issues.

Which are - it has thousands of bugs, it crashes at the drop of a hat, the interface is so shoddily implemented that certain buttons shuffle around the screen as you hover over them, and it was nowhere near ready for release.

I love the match engine, but it's a shockingly broken product, especially on console (the irony) - and people have started to point out that the mobile version is even worse, with substitutes seemingly impossible in some cases.

He brings up leaving again, too, which he has in several interviews. It makes me think he knows the writing's on the wall.
 
Let's play another round of "spot the obvious mistake".

This is almost the first screen you see on FM Mobile 26. :LOL:

MCurCI4F_o.png


"Ensure it has been updated to FM25 Mobile" - that might be a bit tricky...

Makes me wonder if development on mobile platforms was frozen last year, and the assets simply rebranded from 25 >26 - so that they could get all hands on deck for the PC/console versions.

Either that or ALL versions are just a rebadged FM25, which would explain a lot. :LOL:
 
Makes you wonder if internally at SI they all just facepalm and wish he would just stop talking
 
pesfooty29 said:
View attachment 386214

Yeah, I'll pass. I'll wait for next year's game.
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I'm seeing people say it's a huge overreaction from the "hardcore" Miles talks about.

Which is pretty outrageous when every day you come across new bugs and crashes. If this was a beta, it would be bad. As a full release, it's just asking for a lawsuit.
 
Chris Davies said:
I'm seeing people say it's a huge overreaction from the "hardcore" Miles talks about.

Which is pretty outrageous when every day you come across new bugs and crashes. If this was a beta, it would be bad. As a full release, it's just asking for a lawsuit.
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It's not as atrocious as Efootball 22 with the players looking like abominations from hell and it's hilarious bugs, but my god it's getting up there. This is a huge blow to the community and SI's rep, and it makes me wonder what the hell was going on for the past 2 years? I would've gladly waited another year as long as they updated Fm 24. Despite the fuckery, at least Efootball was free. Fm 26 is $59.99. It's joined the big leagues with more licenses, and the game is awful.
 
I don't know what I'm doing wrong, I cannot assign captains to my B team, I cannot delegate it either and the game won't advance unless I pick them. Don't know if its me battling the UI or a bug.
 
Some screenshots from my own game. At least half of the screens I go into are either bugged or are just completely stupid from a design perspective.

(All of this is after the "massive" 300+ bug fix patch.)

Every one of my out-on-loan players is "devastated" with their playing time. Even the ones who have played every possible game for their loan club. This was a bug in Football Manager 2022 from what I can find online. When did FM25/26 start to be worked on? While they were making FM22...

lcO0m32m_o.png

So many news articles give you a headline but hide the story, even when you've clicked the headline.

For example - click the headline "player named in the Team of the Week", and it doesn't even show you the Team of the Week.

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You have to click the truncated news "square", which THEN shows you the Team of the Week...

...which would easily fit into the acres of empty space under the news "square".

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The scout delivers some news about the next opponent - good to know that, out of possession, they "more often" and "yes". Useful. (I am being sarcastic.)

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I get this report about my last match in my inbox, and I immediately want more info on how 67 entries into the final third have resulted in just 15 shots:

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So I click on it, but I can't get any more information about any of those bullet points... It just takes me to the Data Hub home page:

vC7NmitP_o.png

I have to go to the "last match" bit myself to hunt for the info that was mentioned, but:

1) It's not there, it's just basic stats, and
2) While the dropdown selector and the scoreline say "Coventry vs Preston", all of the stats in the summary are from a totally different game (Derby vs Coventry). I have to select Derby vs Coventry if I want to see the stats for Coventry vs Preston.

Esl6ff0o_o.png

I'd like to see the squad depth report, which lists the best players for each position according to each member of your staff in previous FMs. So I search the "FMpedia" for it, and it comes up with a link. Except, it does nothing when you click it... so this is all the squad depth "information" you can get.

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Finally, not a bug, but just more terrible UI decisions. Who the hell could look at the training preview shown on the progression screen and have the foggiest idea what's going on?

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Compare that to what it used to look like...

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It's a total mess.

And what's the point in reporting any of this when there's thousands more bugs (and many more serious ones) to be fixed?
 
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Judging from what I've read here and on reddit, the 300+ bug fix patch hasn't made much of a difference with the game's initial bugs and it's even made newer ones.

I mean no offense to console players when I say this but when I look at the UI, it's obvious they were trying to placate more to console users, but they forget this is traditionally a PC game and it would've been better if they made a different version for consoles while preserving all the good stuff that made FM great on PC.
 
pesfooty29 said:
would've been better if they made a different version
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That's my Pov as well, why didn't they changed the menu for the consoles player only, but kept the features that the PC version had.

So playing online as cross play, each one would have it own menu but the gameplay and features are the same.

I don't have an idea if another game made this in the past.
 
Tried playing this on my xbx. Don't.
Stutters in menus, froze and had to hard reset.

I really hope they fix the game with updates. I get a lot of things are missing but at least do this year for bugs/improve UI and next year add whatever is missing from fm24.
 
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H_G said:
If the transfert system is broken in future editions, then that's a big deal


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Now if this was true for everyone, I would accept the "dumbing down" argument.

Plenty of debate in the comments. Will see if it happens to me, but honestly, I am really struggling to find the motivation to play it again.

Love the match engine but trying to do the simplest things is like trying to find the right paperwork in a hurricane. It's breaking my heart.
 
I was about to say "I know this makes no difference to gameplay but"...

Actually, I think it DOES make a difference to gameplay, because Football Manager is 90% UI. So when there are hundreds of bugs like this, it really does ruin the game.

Let's play "spot the mistake" one more time:

QPhfFU49_o.jpg
 
Chris Davies said:
I was about to say "I know this makes no difference to gameplay but"...

Actually, I think it DOES make a difference to gameplay, because Football Manager is 90% UI. So when there are hundreds of bugs like this, it really does ruin the game.

Let's play "spot the mistake" one more time:

QPhfFU49_o.jpg
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Napoli's home game unbeaten run has come to an end, yet they won the home leg.

I completely stopped playing the game and will never play it again.
 
This is very heart breaking to see (knowing that in the past I played all the CMs and also FM until 2013). I even opened a thread on EvoWeb regarding CM games some years ago. FM 2024 was very acclaimed with extremely positive score so nothing can go wrong, but then you look at FM26 that's just the opposite on the negative side. What happened suddenly in those last two years? Staff was replaced? They were forced by SEGA into a new direction with some specific deadline even though they delayed it last year? I wasn't expecting that someday I'll see this franchise on its knees, because SI always used a slower and methodical path regarding the development of FM, so mostly was a sure thing to expect that they'll release an improved version of FM24. The UI doesn't even look as FM anymore, feels like a touch screen financial app, plus watching all those screenshots, ohhh GOD!!! This one was the last to stand; football videogames genre is officially dead.
 
SI following Coinami's path to villainy. I said I'll wait until next year but from the clips I've seen on youtube and twitter showcasing the amount of bugs and other match engine problems that continue to be an issue post update, I really don't know if FM 27 will be a huge improvement from 26.

They are going to have top spend the whole of next year patching this game which means FM 27 may not be the savior that many think it will be. Cyberpunk took nearly 4 years to get to where it's at currently. Efootball It took 3 years to get into a state where it's decent enough to play. How are SI going to release an international patch on top of FM 27 with these current issues plaguing 26? Maybe they'll get lucky and everything be fixed before Spring but I don't know.

It's a mess right now.
 
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I really tried with FM 26 but I cant cope with how bad it is. It is so bad, it makes FC 26 seem very good in comparison. I still will never understand why people laud this as "the best football game", when it is awful.

Never mind the awful UX/UI, the game's match engine is still dogshit (especially the AI, which I could compare to FC 26 on level of dogshit) and it still has an awful artificial difficulty problem thats plagued the game for years. Whats more, for the "most detailed football game", it is exceptionally shallow in many important areas that a user wants.

My list of problems with bugs and general gameplay is huge but here is a snippet:
- serious issues with transfers (Premier League players joining Championship / League 1 but youth players refuse to join...)
- teams being way out of their real life position in the league (Sheff Wednesday winning the league...)
- team's owners selling their club within 3-6 months (Wrexham's owner, Ryan Reynolds sold up after 6 months, Swansea's owner after 4)
- morale issues due to some bullshit game mechanics (i.e. they IMMEDIATELY all don't like you because you are not "ex-pro" is still the dumbest thing ive ever seen, where is the choice to be a "seasoned manager" or "seasoned coach"?). also, if I acted like they do in a work environment, I'd be sacked on the spot. you cant control anything in the dressing room. there has to be more of a "game mechanic" here to resolve it, otherwise the game has already decided you cant win. And because the game is so inept, morale is more important than ANYTHING else in the game, so your players are terrible, no matter what tactics you play, so you end up bottom, even if you had Man City in League 2, you'd end up bottom. so f*cking dumb. the only way I could improve my situation was to play my U18s & U21s in my 1st team, guess what, I started winning games. that is how much morale affects the game... dumb as fk.
- personalities dont do anything in the game, even if they are a seasoned professional, they act like teenage kids
- completely unable to see the tactics you chose in a previous match.... remember that tactic you switched to that won that game a few days ago when you last played? I don't, apparently the game doesn't either lol

You compare my experience to my brother (who has a lot more patience for this crap), he selected the same managerial experience but took charge of a Conference South team, wins the league easily because the team wasn't constantly bitching about something.

So the game is still the most artificial crap ever. Attributes dont mean anything, morale means 90%, tactics mean 10%. So you are still playing teenage girl group simulator but with a dumbed down UI.

Rant over :)
 
Paul-v said:
I really tried with FM 26 but I cant cope with how bad it is. It is so bad, it makes FC 26 seem very good in comparison. I still will never understand why people laud this as "the best football game", when it is awful.

Never mind the awful UX/UI, the game's match engine is still dogshit (especially the AI, which I could compare to FC 26 on level of dogshit) and it still has an awful artificial difficulty problem thats plagued the game for years. Whats more, for the "most detailed football game", it is exceptionally shallow in many important areas that a user wants.

My list of problems with bugs and general gameplay is huge but here is a snippet:
- serious issues with transfers (Premier League players joining Championship / League 1 but youth players refuse to join...)
- teams being way out of their real life position in the league (Sheff Wednesday winning the league...)
- team's owners selling their club within 3-6 months (Wrexham's owner, Ryan Reynolds sold up after 6 months, Swansea's owner after 4)
- morale issues due to some bullshit game mechanics (i.e. they IMMEDIATELY all don't like you because you are not "ex-pro" is still the dumbest thing ive ever seen, where is the choice to be a "seasoned manager" or "seasoned coach"?). also, if I acted like they do in a work environment, I'd be sacked on the spot. you cant control anything in the dressing room. there has to be more of a "game mechanic" here to resolve it, otherwise the game has already decided you cant win. And because the game is so inept, morale is more important than ANYTHING else in the game, so your players are terrible, no matter what tactics you play, so you end up bottom, even if you had Man City in League 2, you'd end up bottom. so f*cking dumb. the only way I could improve my situation was to play my U18s & U21s in my 1st team, guess what, I started winning games. that is how much morale affects the game... dumb as fk.
- personalities dont do anything in the game, even if they are a seasoned professional, they act like teenage kids
- completely unable to see the tactics you chose in a previous match.... remember that tactic you switched to that won that game a few days ago when you last played? I don't, apparently the game doesn't either lol

You compare my experience to my brother (who has a lot more patience for this crap), he selected the same managerial experience but took charge of a Conference South team, wins the league easily because the team wasn't constantly bitching about something.

So the game is still the most artificial crap ever. Attributes dont mean anything, morale means 90%, tactics mean 10%. So you are still playing teenage girl group simulator but with a dumbed down UI.

Rant over :)
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I was waiting for your review and yeah sadly even when UI is fixed, it's still a shallow game. In your opinion, what do you think is the best football manager game even from the past?
 
Topaz said:
I was waiting for your review and yeah sadly even when UI is fixed, it's still a shallow game. In your opinion, what do you think is the best football manager game even from the past?
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Didnt realise I had that much of an appreciated opinion. Thanks!!

I have a lot of games from my distant past which I loved as a kid -> teenager. After that I didn't really enjoy "management" games much as I prefered playing the game more than watching it.

However, off the top of my head:

old games:
- Ultimate Soccer Manager
- Premier Manager
- FIFA Manager (EA were making a great management simulator mixed with their match engine... noboby played it though)

newer games:
- Football Manager 18 wasn't too bad. they added squad hierachies to this game and it worked. the UI is very clean. I never felt bullshitted in it. tactics worked etc.
- FIFA 20. manager mode and leaving the CPU play the game (with mods) was insanely good. i've never really found a FIFA/FC that has the same pull as I had for that game. FC 26 isn't too bad though (with mods), and I dont have as much time as I did back then to reshape the career mode into something great.
 
Paul-v said:
Didnt realise I had that much of an appreciated opinion. Thanks!!

I have a lot of games from my distant past which I loved as a kid -> teenager. After that I didn't really enjoy "management" games much as I prefered playing the game more than watching it.

However, off the top of my head:

old games:
- Ultimate Soccer Manager
- Premier Manager
- FIFA Manager (EA were making a great management simulator mixed with their match engine... noboby played it though)

newer games:
- Football Manager 18 wasn't too bad. they added squad hierachies to this game and it worked. the UI is very clean. I never felt bullshitted in it. tactics worked etc.
- FIFA 20. manager mode and leaving the CPU play the game (with mods) was insanely good. i've never really found a FIFA/FC that has the same pull as I had for that game. FC 26 isn't too bad though (with mods), and I dont have as much time as I did back then to reshape the career mode into something great.
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I think that you can agree also that some old sport games have it's own unique style and keep alive good feelings of those times.
Even if this games are having old graphics, old approach to gameplay structure, old meny style and other things, and were made using the technical capabilities of that time, but still playing them - you are "feeling that developers make this game with love to what they are doing and with love to tiny details".
There are "different kings" in different sport's field simulators.
 
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Sany023 said:
I think that you can agree also that some old sport games have it's own unique style and keep alive good feelings of those times.
Even if this games are having old graphics, old approach to gameplay structure, old meny style and other things, but still playing them - you are "feeling that developers make this game with love to what they are doing".
There are "different kings" in different sport's field simulators.
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It's also the fact that older games focused more in the fundamental of football rather than all of these flashy features that don't work. There are a lot of older football games that i have never played(like the older FIFA Manager, Football Manager, etc) and I actually enjoy it way more. The fundamental is spot on. And it's not nostalgia. For example in older football manager games, I feel like an actual manager and not some babysitter trying to improve my team's morale. Player attributes mattered most along with tactics and CPU AI is difficult. You can tell it's not a game build by corporations that hires engineers that actually love football and understand it at a fundamental level.
 
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